Tuesday, February 10, 2015

How do I find time to ___________?

Many of us feel time-crunched. Like we need more spaciousness in our
lives for all kinds of things, including working on our big vision.

Now sometimes, "I don't have enough time," can really mean, "I'm
exhausted and need more sleep," or "I'm afraid," or "I don't want to
fail," or "I don't want to have to make a decision and focus on one
project." But when time is truly the issue, we have two choices:

1. Eliminate some of the things that have been taking up the space we need to create.

2. Adapt to the space we have and embrace our limits.

For example, let's say you were hoping to sit down at the beginning
of this year and map out a BIG plan for your life. You were going to
make a 1-year plan, a 5-year plan and a 10-year plan. You were going to
create timelines and to-lists and "figure it all out."

But now
it's already February. And your days are filled with work and family and
friends and laundry and commuting and, oh yeah, you had the flu for a
week in January, which threw everything out of whack, and the kids have
spring break in March, and you have a wedding to go to in April (what
will you wear?) and you keep getting those postcards reminding you to go
to the dentist. It doesn't seem like things are going to slow down any
time soon. Aaaargh!

If we can't eliminate any commitments from our lives right now, we have to adapt and embrace our limits.
We need to use the time we have to do what we can rather than waiting
for "someday" in the future when we think we will have luxuriously long
free chunks of time. That someday may come, or it may not. In the
meantime, we have to work with what we have, even if it's only an hour a
week.

"[N]othing
stifles inventiveness and artistry more brutally, than too much
freedom, too much wiggle room for the imagination. Instead, they argue,
the real source of productive creativity may lie in art's supposed
bugaboos: rules, structure, even the occasional editor or two."

"It’s
hard to get people to focus on plan B when plan A is working so well.
Now we are in a place where lots of 'plans As' are no longer working.
Being forced to reevaluate is allowing us to see this connection between
limitations and creativity that has always been right in front of us."

Someday
may never come, but today always will, so let's try to see the
restrictions on our time as opportunities and love our limits!